loringa wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:20 am
A useful and generally sensible rant (well, it was over 10 words
)
Though I am pleased never to have been subjected to the privations of rationing (though I still have the ration card I was issued as a baby 'just in case'), my parent's view is that the nation as a whole was never better fed, nor more fairly. Everyone, rich or poor, got what they needed (just) and as many that were able supplemented their rations with healthy home grown fruit and vegies, kept chickens or communally raised pigs.
Do you still have your identity card? There was a psycho..... article some years ago that the average person has trouble learning a series of over 7 characters. we all had identity cards and our numbers consisted of seven letters and numbers - I still remember mine - until they imported those yanks who converted our numbers into an unconsciable long number and told us that henceforth it was out NHS number. Can someone work out how many combinations could be made out of 24 letters and 10 numerals (including zero) (Edit; my number included the capital letter I and the number 1 so no need to worry about confusion so make that 26 letters)
I also read an article about the man who devised the rationing quantities. Having worked it out he walked from London to Birmingham to check it and made a few corrections. Yes, it was adequate and also very healthy - no obesity (well everyone worked 6 days a week and sometimes more). I still remember that lovely Rose Hip Syrup which was part of a child's ration. As far as I remember the raising of animals had to be done on the sly or the bobby would be after you. The second house I lived in we had a lot of chickens so there were eggs every day and frequent chicken meat. Also a huge vegetable and fruit garden.
Food in this country is incredibly cheap compared with the real costs of producing most of it yet our collective diet has never been so unhealthy.
I have to wonder about this as a generalisation. It is a question of climate - much of our fruit and veg was grown in the very sunny warm climes of Italy and Spain. Our outdoor climate restricts the growing season though the introduction of square miles of glasshouse will improve that. When I lived there food in France (including VAT at 20% was about the same, sometimes less that in the UK - transport and more middlemen took the difference.. Meat is a different matter - it is cheap but the middlemen take so much commission that the farmer suffers. On top of that every last petty civil servant has its nose in the regulation that they increase the price inordinately as well.
The wealthy often eat far too much meat (as I most certainly do myself and even my healthily vegetarian dd eats lots of highly processed vegie burgers and sausages) whereas far too many of the less well off feed themselves and their offspring all too often on unhealthy and expensive junk food. It's one of the great myths of our time that healthy food is expensive; it is not, certainly when compared with the tasty but high fat, sugar and salt-laden takeaways. Pasta, vegies, tinned tomatoes etc are cheap, healthy and relatively easy to prepare yet we all, rich and poor, stuff ourselves either with rubbish or too much of the stuff that is wrecking the environment.
It is exceptionally difficult to get a fully balanced diet from a vegetarian meal. (I would remind you that a couple were found guilty of the manslaughter of their child who had to share their vegan diet and did not get adequate needed whatevers)
A few months ago I actually did a short university course on nutrition and what they came up with was a bit frightening. For example they wanted us to take a quantity of cinnamon which another authority rates as poisonous in such quantities. (I have been using a small amount of cinnamon daily for years - after I researched it!) If you take vitamin tablets look at the nutrient reference value (which is what a healthy adult male needs daily) mine include 1000% of the NRV for vitamin B12 and they say "do not exceed the stated dose"!
Let us just accept that there are multiple conflicting ideas. However things are constantly changing. You needed 10 1960 oranges to receive the same nutrient quantity as a single 1945 orange. Modern farming methods have change (and in almost every case reduced) the mineral and vitamin content of vegetables and fruit. Indeed there are one or two vegetables where specific minerals have since disappeared. Let me stress that this refers to commercially grown products - not home grown.
In this house we eat very little meat quantities - but som e most days. My dislike is the use of fat whether to bulk up a product or to fry it. Fat is needed in one's diet but not in the quantities often seen in fast food, fryups etc., Salt is a problem - it improves the taste of food but too much is needed for that.
" far too many of the less well off feed themselves and their offspring all too often on unhealthy and expensive junk food". I suspect several causes - kids are not taught how to cook, it's quick after a long day's work, it needs little thought and effort and it seems cheap.
How many readers, male, female or other were taught to cook by their parents? How many of their fathers cooked or was it a "woman's job"? How many learned anything about nutrition? (I was lucky; outside of when I was physically at CH, from the age of zero to 17 i lived and often worked in the kitchens of houses where good nutrition was de rigeur but at the same time it won prizes)
The concept also concerns me in that I went into a very well known burger joint withe the floor covered in rubbish, food being handled in a vert unsafe manner and other worse problems; when I complained to the UK ho their answer was along the lines of "too bad, get lost".
Far worse is that by law all our water must be contaminated.
I have absolutely no idea how we deal with this. Governments of all hues are in hock to the big manufacturers and producers so are reluctant to do the right thing ...........................
True. As an example Britain badly needs new sources of green energy but in the 1970s when they had a chance of that ..
read paragraph three of
https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/un ... lters-duck
I remember those times well; one independent engineer reckoned that if it were put offshore they would get enough electricity for all the uk's 2000 needs. A less efficient version of Dr Salter's Duck (designed by his students) is currently in use in Europe. What the report didn't say was that it would also reduce the damage done to coastal towns. There are at lest five places around England where the tide runs so fast that hydroelectric power is a distinct possibility as well - only one small experimental one has been placed.